Define: Google Plus

aka: Google+, G+. Google+ pronounced Google Plus and sometimes abbreviated as G+ is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc.

The Google Plus service was initially launched as an invitation-only field or beta test. However, these were soon suspended due to an overwhelming demand for new accounts and in September 2011, the service was opened to everyone.

Google+ integrates earlier versions of the company’s attempts at providing an alternative to the already well-established social networking sites of Facebook and Twitter. G+ is the company’s fourth foray into social networking after the launch of Google Profiles and Google Buzz. Neither of these were embraced by users and were less than spectacular and in turn they were suspended after a short time. However, some of these features were rolled into Google+ Circles, Hangouts and Sparks. Google+ is available as a website and on mobile devices. Google Friend Connect that launched in 2008 was retired in March 2012 and Orkut was launched in 2004 and is currently being operated entirely by subsidiary Google Brazil.

Although predictions of Google+ being any real competition to Facebook or Twitter in regard to the number of users was lackluster, early in 2012 they reported having in excess of 90 million users with over half a million users being added daily. The bad news was reported on February 28, 2012 by Todd Wasserman from Mashable, who found in his research that Google+ users were spending a disappointing 3.3 minutes monthly, which was a slide from the 4.8 minutes reported in December 2011 and 5.1 minutes in November 2011 compared to Facebook users currently spending 7.5 hours using the site monthly.

There were and continue to be other problems with the service. At the initial launch, Google Apps accounts could not be used on Google+ due to lack of support for Google Profiles.On October 27, Google announced that Google+ now supports Google Apps users (if the user’s domain administrator has enabled the service). The good news and possibly signaling a brighter future for Google’s new social networking apps, is that in under a day after the Google+ iPhone app was launched it became the most popular app in the Apple store.

Joining the service initially required users to provide their real names and disclose their gender. This was harshly criticized by many a social networking blogger, and most prominently SlashGear, due to the lack of privacy and what they perceived as an attempt to force users to chose from generic gender categories. Google justified this in terms of how to describe the user in terms of he, she, or they- now if a user opts out of the gender category, their profile will use the singular “they” in place of gender pronouns.

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